Nice job Alan. Incidentally, the Netcomm Roadster was the most reliable and stable modem both in hardware and drivers that I think i ever used or had to interface to. We’ve still got a couple of them somewhere around here in shrinkwrapped boxes.
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I can understand the hobby-is-for-home attitude. If I’ve had my hands deep in hardware all day at work I don’t feel like doing hardware at home. I’ve found that if i’m doing hardware at work, I’ll do firmware/software at home and vice versa. I can understand your attitude is different if you’re working for yourself as opposed to an employer.
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I signed up for a WebOS event in Sydney the day before HP started to break the bad news. I think i’ll still go. Not sure what the mood will be like.
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I also use “foreign order” to describe side projects. Not everyone recognises the term. I used to take the liberty. We don’t seem to have time for it these days. Usually the end “product” was work related anyway. If the end product wasn’t work related, the process was work relevant. Employers should let it happen if it won’t send them to the wall. It’s got to be cheaper than training right? I think so. There’s been a number of times I’ve been able to talk sensibly about some technology, protocol or concept proposed as part of a new product because I’ve researched or actually used it for a “foreign order” in the past. And a lot of the info sticks because I was interested in it.

Loved listening to this show guys! Just wanted to mention an interesting company in the US that have been really successful the past ten years or so selling awesome kits for the ham radio market: http://www.elecraft.com

I built my own Elecraft K2 rig and had a terrific time doing it some 8 years ago or so … and just thought the conversations about ham radio and the mention of Heathkit on the comeback made for an interesting combination. Couldn’t resist posting about Elecraft – I am a totally satisfied customer, and they have a terrific community of builders that support newbies into the hobby.

When I was an apprentice we would be given all the ‘Government ‘ work to do. These were the jobs people brought in from home for repair, Irons, toasters, radios and of course the Christmas tree lights. You had to have them off the bench before 8:30 when the elephants came in, but until then you were free to work on your ‘Guvvy’ jobs. That was back in the day when people fixed things of course 🙂

I have a GW Instek analog(ue) scope. I don’t really know how to use it, but I feel good about owning it. I have had some useful times using the simple features. I managed to prove that my UV detector was working with it.

The odd thing about the HP sell-off is that it only mentioned consumer PCs. It doesn’t mention all the servers, blades, storage arrays and other enterprise stuff that they sell (with much better margins then consumer stuff).

Ah, so it is. I had a bunch of friends that used to work in/around AMD fabs in Germany (lots of them) before they became Global Foundries. I’ll try to clear this up next week. That was a silly mistake/assumption on my part.

He guys, NXP Semiconductor is also a European company, one of the chip fabs is placed in Nijmegen. A nice fact: one of the buildings has the shape of a “traditional” DIP-package. You’ll find it on google maps, coördinates are: 51.825713,5.817276

Taiwan is definitely not part of China; China does not own Taiwan or have any direct control over Taiwan. The Gov. of China of course says Taiwan is part of China but at most this is symbolic. Until recently one could not get a direct commercial flight between Taiwan and China so you might fly to Japan in between.

One indicator of the style of the relationship is that Chinese tourists of Taiwan had only been done in group tours but recently they had their first group of ‘individual tourists’. I read this in the paper during my last trip.

My employer is a Taiwan company with HQ and a small factory in Taiwan with an additional, large manufacturing presence in China. I can confidently say there are considerable differences between these two distinct countries. The capabilities are different and the ethics are different although I think the culture is kind of similar.

I know this statement touches on politics, somewhat a forbidden area but I think it is important to point out that products manufactured in or controlled from Taiwan are likely to be considerably higher quality.

On my last trip to Taiwan, one person told me that the tourists from China often seek to buy products that are made in Taiwan because they hold higher value than their own local goods. They call it “MIT” / Made in Taiwan.

Taiwan and my country, the US have long been good friends.

that said, I am not an expert… as Dave sometimes says I could be talking out of my you know what but I think I am pretty close to the facts if not right on.